‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3’ makeup and hair team on crafting the Humanimals: ‘It was like Christmas Day’ [Exclusive Video Interview]
It is not an exaggeration to say that “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3” was bigger than ever — at least when it comes makeup. The third and final film in James Gunn‘s Marvel Cinematic Universe trilogy set a new world record for the most prosthetics used in a film, eclipsing the one held by “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (2000).
“I think it was 22,540. We might’ve missed counting a lip or something,” makeup department head Alexei Dmitriew tells Gold Derby (watch above) alongside hair department head Cassie Russek and prosthetics design head Lindsay McGowan. “It was over 1,000 actors with background included. And we had a cast of 60-plus, something like that. It was quite a few people. Not all at once, but sometimes a lot of that. Sometimes our daily number would be up to 390 people coming through our hair and makeup trailers, including background and including our cast and stunts. It was a lot.”
The film’s makeup and hair is almost entirely practical, in line with Gunn’s wishes. The writer-director worked with Legacy Effects, co-founded by McGowan, on the designs, and because of the sheer volume, organization and communication were paramount. “We had a lot of communication on our end too, tracking everything and then making sure that Cassie and Alexei had what they needed on a daily basis,” McGowan says. “So there’s an awful lot of back-and-forth between us. I had all of their excel sheets of tracking things and then we had ours over here to make sure we had the right thing cast and painted and sent out to set. So there’s an awful lot of coordination between all three of us that had to happen on that movie.”
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One of the benefits of working on a franchise film is changing the look of a character as the story and their arc progress. Case in point: Nebula (Karen Gillan) is not the same Nebula you saw in the first “Guardians” film. “Rocket had upgraded her, and so we got to design all of her arm weapons as well as her new face appliances,” McGowan explains. And for the first time, because of her upcoming wedding, Gillan didn’t shave her head. “We wanted to make sure that no only were we keeping her hair in good hair health, but we had to make sure that we could get that all in that bald wrap this time with no haircut, no shaved head, no undercut because we want to make sure that the actors are happy at the end of the day while maintaining the look,” Russek shares. “So, yeah, it was a bit of a challenge.”
“Vol. 3” also introduces a bunch of new characters, like the High Evolutionary (Chukwudi Iwuji) and Adam Warlock (Will Poulter), and of course, the Humanimals. The human-animal hybrids are residents of Counter-Earth and the trio had a lotta fun with the off-kilter designs. “It was almost like starting a new whole movie, if you will, because it was just a whole new experience,” Dmitriew says. “We were doing about 30-plus Humanimals in makeup. Plus, we had our cast and about 30 people in the background that had masks and gloves on. We had about 80, 90 people that we were all putting in makeup, and everybody there except for Chris Pratt was all in full prosthetics makeup. It was a lot of logistics … but the teams had so much fun. It was really great designs and so much fun to do all these makeups.”
“It was like Christmas Day every time a box would come in from Legacy,” Russek adds. “We’d rip them open and pull them out and we’d be like, ‘Oh, my gosh!’ I remember, specifically, the day we got the porcupine. I pulled that wig out and I was like, ‘I’m doing this!’ When we would get the hair boxes, everyone in the hair trailer would be like, ‘I’m doing that one! I wanna do that one! Dibs!'”
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